Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

Question 1

Maternal deprivation

Answer 1

the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and his/her mother or mother substitute.
Bowlby proposed that constinuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development, and that prolonged separation from this adult causes serious damage to emotional and intellectual development

Question 2

Separation versus deprivation

Answer 2

Separation - child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure
this only becomes an issue for development i.e. they lose an element of her care.
Brief separations are not significant for development but extended separations can lead to deprivation, which causes harm.

Question 3

The critical period

Answer 3

Bowlby saw the first 30 months of life as a critical period for psychological development.
If a child is separated from their mother in the absence of suitable care and so deprived of her emotional care for an extended period during critical period then psychological damage was inevitable.

Question 4

Effects on development: Intellectual development

Answer 4

• would suffer delayed intellectual development, characterised bY abnormally low IQ.
• demonstrated in studies of adoptions

Question 5

Effects on development: Emotional development

Answer 5

• identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others
• prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.
• cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and so lack remorse for their actions

Question 6

Bowlby’s 44 thieves: Procedure

Answer 6

44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing

• interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims
• their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether thieves had prolonged early separation from their mothers.
• A control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed young people was set up to see how often maternal separation/deprivation occurred in the children who were not thieves.

Question 7

Bowlby’s 44 thieves: Findings

Answer 7

• 14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths.
• of this 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives
• in contrast only 5 of the remaining 30 ;thieves’ had experienced separations.
• of the control group, only 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations.

– concluded that prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy